


How Cruel "God" Is

by steingasse



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: (for better or for worse), Arisasa Week 2015, Gen, M/M, aka how sasaki came to be, and arima's heart came out of hibernation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steingasse/pseuds/steingasse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took the cleanup team a few minutes to realize Centipede was still breathing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Cruel "God" Is

They had loaded his body onto a stretcher, were preparing to ship it to headquarters to be processed, when a shaky gasp brought them to attention, dropping the corpse to the ground. At least, they had thought it was a corpse. The monsters mouth was working open, weakly pumping out blood and vomit. His limbs wouldn’t function - spasming and twitching in unnatural directions, breaking his own bones even more than the battle already had.

(The orders came to load him into the truck anyway.)

* * *

 

It was not a novel situation that CCG had wound up in. They had taken in half-dead ghouls before, only to throw them into holding where they would be studied, tested, and eventually destroyed. It was science. It was how they had learned so much about ghouls in the first place. This was what they had always done. It became a novel situation when Arima Kishou decided to visit the “dangerous/restricted” section of the ICU.

He found the room windowless, with two first class officers standing guard outside. They were protecting - or perhaps protecting others from - what could only be considered a zombie.

“RC levels are extremely low,” a nurse intoned, glancing at the weak pulse signal bouncing again and again, every second or so. Her words were strained, forced to be professional despite any prejudice, just like everyone else. No one was exactly sure how to feel during these situations anyway. “It’ll probably die soon.”

Bloody wraps were wound tightly around what used to be wide grey eyes. (The last time Arima had seen them they had been crying.)

* * *

 

Maybe it was because they had lost so many agents in the Anteiku raid, or because the science division realized that they could not just throw away such a rare research subject. In any case, the prisoner-turned-patients’ fate was sealed when the CCG’s Reaper assured the head chairman of the safety of this  _experiment_.

“If the situation becomes dangerous, I can just kill him again.” (Though he knew this was probably false).

Thus Arima Kishou gained a new responsibility.

* * *

 

He needed flesh.

It was an undeniable fact that no one seemed to want to mention. So, while vital signs dropped lower and lower and a dry pasty body became even more unresponsive, nurses looked off to the side and tutted. Quietly, nervously.

“Oh, it’s state isn’t improving.”  _(“Go ahead and die already.”)_

The Special Investigator chalked it up to pride that he organized for human leftovers originally designated as research donations to be brought from the morgue. He said he would make it happen. The “ownership rights” were his. He would make an investigator out of this person.

Make him human.

But first, make him healthy.

He sat at the patient’s bedside for day after day, carefully putting pieces of meat into his quivering mouth. Cooked and formed like a hamburger. Cut and forked like a piece of regular food. Arima fed him by hand, three times a day, because the others were afraid.

 _(“Please stop. I don’t want to…”_ Those were the first words spoken to him, wet and weak like a calf with broken legs.)

* * *

 

Arima rolled that randomly generated name around on his tongue, even though it didn’t matter that much what he called this person. (Did he want to believe that or not?)

“How do you feel today?” the first direct question, the first one he expected to be answered. “Sasaki?”

But it wasn’t at first. (In all those weeks, he may have forgotten how to talk.)

Eventually, the boy could sit up on his own, and his head would turn when he heard Arima’s voice. Then, “Head hurts.” An answer. As he supplied the nurses for morphine, Arima handed the boy a plate. He held it in his lap hesitantly. A hand reached up to feel his bandaged face. Arima caught it in midair, firmly, perhaps too harsh, setting it down back in his lap. The man worked the thin fingers around a fork.

“You were injured in training exercise,” the investigator delivered, one hand feeling an unhealthily boney spine as he checked the pad on the patients’ back. “It’s been a long recovery.” Silence met his words. “Do you remember anything?”

Dangerous question. One hand instinctively went to his side, on the handle of Narukami. The assistant checking the machinery stilled.

He swayed where he sat, just a bit. “…Sasaki…you said…”

“Yes, that’s you. Sasaki Haise.”

Breathed in and out in a way that almost seemed relieved. “Haise…” Resolutely.

(It was almost like he wanted to forget.)

* * *

 

They moved him to a room with sunlight after his future went to a vote. He was no threat, apparently. The Reaper had him under control. (That could hardly be true; Arima had no idea what he was doing.)

It was easy to read in there, with just the quiet whirr of electricity and breathing that evened out at last. Sasaki would pick up on the sound of a page turning- “…a book?” –and somehow the investigator found himself reading aloud, albeit in monotony.

“I didn’t realize you liked books.”

“Yes.” He was reclined on the cot, facing the ceiling. Dark nails picked at the hospital standard sheet covering his frame. “I miss them.”

“I have a few. You can read them once you get out.”

That was the first smile.

(He was really putting more effort than necessary into this.)

* * *

 

Once, during their many quiet moments in that isolated IC unit, the boy’s chapped lips parted and pushed out a complete sentence.

"Arima-san, no one will talk to me but you.”

Arima let his eyes rest on the bandages wrapped around the patients head. He’d never been there during the time when the nurses had to change them, but he could imagine what was underneath. He could all too well imagine. It was funny to think that even then, the workers would ignore any questions or comments, sounds of pain.

He folded his hands and spoke in his usual light tone. “Maybe that’s because they don’t know what to say.”

(He didn’t know what he wanted to say either.)

* * *

 

His eyes were the last to heal and Arima was not prepared for the day when the bandages came off. They were the same grey, like watery ash, still so wide and full of childish need despite holding all the pain the world had to offer. They were the same ones that had stared him down across a field of blood covered flowers and sent him into alert.

“I didn’t realize your hair was the same as mine.” Sasaki’s gaze landed on the man’s snowy locks. They both looked like old men, greying and ill. (Though some not in ways that can be seen.)

Wiggled into a wheelchair, the boy seemed dazed, holding his own hands tight and crinkling his eyebrows every few seconds. Arima encouraged Sasaki to roll himself down the hallway – “Build up your arm muscles again.”

He wanted to give him a reset. That’s the truth, isn’t it? But although he knew it would be easier if ‘Sasaki Haise’ remained forever, he wasn’t sure if he wanted him to. (He’d never gotten attached to someone before.)

Maybe that’s why he stood behind Sasaki , watching him roll, and why he never went anywhere without a knife in his sleeve.

_(Betray me, please, so I don’t have to soften.)_

* * *

 

_**[But he’s already completely defrosted.]** _


End file.
